Prairie Pawn
Max Brand
(as Peter Henry Morland)
(Frederick Faust)
I
In great good-humor was High Wolf and with reason. No fewer than twenty of his young men were on the warpath under the leadership of the young chiefs, Rising Hawk and Standing Bull, but still the man power of his camp was so great that he had been able to send out young and old to a great hunt, and a vastly successful one, so that now the whole camp was red with hanging buffalo meat and white with the great strips of back fat. It was not strange that the old warrior chose to wrap himself in his robe and walk slowly through the camp. Everywhere the women were at work, for now that the meat had been hung to dry, there was the labor of fleshing the many hides—cowhides for robes and lodge skins, bull hides for parfleche, shields, and everything that needed stiff and powerful leather. Three days like this, in a year’s hunting, would keep the entire camp in affluence.
So, therefore, smiles and flashing teeth turned toward the chief as he went on his solitary way through the crowd, apparently oblivious of everything, but with his old eyes missing not the least of details, until he had completed the round of the teepees and returned to the center of the camp where, near his own big lodge there stood a still more brilliant teepee, a nineteen-skin beauty, of snowy hide, with just enough gaudy paint to show off its white texture.
Without envy, but with a critical eye, he regarded this lodge, moving from one side to another, as though anxious to make sure that all was well with it. Then he struck with his walking staff at the flap of the tent. He was asked to enter, and, stepping inside, he found there an old woman, busily beading moccasins. She rose to greet him. It was one of his squaws, Young Willow, though there was nothing young about her except her name. Time had shrunk and bowed her a little, but her arms were still long and powerful, and she was known through the whole tribe for the work of her strong hands.
High Wolf tapped the hard floor of the lodge impatiently with his staff.
“Why are you not fleshing hides?” he asked. “It is not always summer. When winter comes, White Thunder will have to sit close to the fire, and even then his back will be cold. He will not have anything to wrap himself in.”
In spite of the awe in which she held her husband and master, Young Willow allowed herself the luxury of a faint smile, and she waved to the furnishings of the tent. There was only one bed, but there were six backrests made of the slenderest willow shoots, strung on sinew, and covered with the softest robes, and between the backrests were great sacks of dried meat, corn, and fruit. There were huge, square bundles, too, encased in dry rawhide, almost as stiff and strong as wood. One of these she opened. It was filled with folded robes, and, lifting the uppermost one, she displayed to her husband the inner surface, elaborately painted.
“And there are many more,” said Young Willow. “There are so many more than he can use that I have to keep them in these bundles. He has enough to wear, enough to wrap his friends in in cold weather, enough to give away to the poor and the old warriors, and besides there are plenty to use for trade. He is rich, and there is no one else among the Cheyennes who is as rich as he. Look!”
She took up a bag, and, jerking open its mouth, she allowed the chief to look down into a great mass of beads of all colors, all sizes. There were crystal beads that flashed like diamonds, there were beads of crimson, purple, yellow, black, gold, and brown. There were big and small beads, dull and bright beads.
Even the calm of the chief was broken a little and he grunted: “This is well. This is well. Who gave him all these beads?”
“Whistling Elk brought them yesterday,” said the squaw. “When he came in from the traders, you know that he brought many things. But most of his robes he had traded for these beads and he came to the teepee here and told White Thunder that he wanted him to have the beads. White Thunder did not want to take them.”
The chief grunted.
“Why not?” he asked sharply. “Does a treasure like this fall down every day like dew on the ground?”
“White Thunder said that he had more than he required. But Whistling Elk reminded him that his son would have died, if White Thunder had not cured him with a strong medicine.”
“I remember,” said the old man. “That is very true. The son of Whistling Elk became very sick.”
“He was as hot as fire,” said the squaw. “The medicine men could not help him. Then White Thunder had him carried to this lodge. Listen to me. For three days he gave that boy nothing to eat except water in which meat had been boiled. He wrapped him in cold clothes, too. On the fourth day the boy began to sweat terribly. His mother was sitting beside him and she began to cry and mourn. She said that her son was melting away. But White Thunder smiled. He said that the sickness was melting away and not the body. He was right. The boy slept, and, when he opened his eyes, they were clear and bright. In half a moon he could walk with the other boys.”
“I remember it.” The chief nodded. “Heammawihio has clothed White Thunder with power as he clothes a tree with green leaves. If he is rich now, still he is not rich enough.”
“He has sixty horses in the herd,” said the woman.
“Still he is not rich enough,” said High Wolf. “I have given you to this teepee to take care of him and cook for him. It would be better for you to displease me than to displease him. It would be better for you to displease underwater spirits than to displease him, Young Willow!”
He spoke so sternly that she shrank from him a little, and immediately explained: “Wind Woman and three young girls are all working to flesh hides for White Thunder. They can do more than I can do alone. Besides, I am working here at this beading to make him happy.”
She showed the moccasin and the chief deigned to examine it with some care. He handed it back with a grunt and a nod.
“He did not go to the hunt,” he said. “Why did he not go? Was he sick?”
“His heart is sick, not his body,” said the squaw sullenly. “He has all that any warrior could want, and yet he is not a warrior. Look. There is always meat steaming in the pot. It is the best meat. There is always fat in it. The flesh of old bulls is never given to him. The dried meat of young, tender cows and calves fills those sacks. He lives like a great chief. But he is not a chief. He has never made a scalp shirt. He has never taken a scalp or killed an enemy or counted a coup!”
“So,” said the chief, “you work for him with your hands, but in your heart you despise him.”
She answered sullenly: “Why should I not? He is not like us. There is no young man in the camp who is not stronger and taller.”
The chief made a little pause in which his anger seemed to rise. “What young man,” he said, “has come to us from among the Sky People?”
She was silent, shrugging her shoulders.
“What young man,” he said, “could drive off the water spirits when they were tearing down the banks of a great river?”
At this she blinked a little, as though remembering something important, but half forgotten.
“What young man among us . . . or what old man, either . . . what great doctor or medicine man,” went on High Wolf with rising sternness, “was able to bring the rain? The corn withered. Dust covered the prairie. In the winter we should have starved. But White Thunder went out and called once, and immediately the clouds jumped up in the south. He called again and the clouds covered the sky. The third time he cried out, the rain washed our faces and ran down to the roots of the dying corn . . . but these things you forget!”
“No,” she muttered, “I never shall forget that day. No Cheyenne ever has seen such strong medicine working.”